The Patriot actress Skye McCole Bartusiak dies at 21


Actress Skye McCole Bartusiak, best known for playing Mel Gibson's youngest daughter in The Patriot, died Saturday in Houston. She was 21.
Her cause of death has not yet been determined, but Bartusiak’s mother, Helen McCole Bartusiak, told CNN her daughter had recently suffered from several epileptic seizures.
In addition to 2000's The Patriot, Bartusiak also appeared in the movies The Cider House Rules and Don't Say a Word, with her last role in 2012's Sick Boy, a low-budget thriller. According to her mother, Bartusiak was getting ready to produce and direct her first feature film. "She was a kind and really beautiful girl," Helen McCole Bartusiak told CNN. "The girl has lived such an amazing life."
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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